Can't Deny Global Warming? Jonah Goldberg Just Changes the Subject

For years the coal and oil industries relied on an out-and-out denial of global warming as their strategy. Obfuscating the issue and confusing people allowed them to stave off regulations and continue business as usual with their CO2 producing products.

            There are still people and organizations that work at global warming denial, attack climate scientists, or repeat the “more research needs to be done” meme. But now as the glaciers retreat farther, the seas rise higher, and temperatures inch up every year, it’s harder and harder to get people to take you seriously when you deny that there is global warming. So what is a GOP supporting, right wing rhetor supposed to do when he is confronted with climate change?

            He changes the subject.

            That’s what Jonah Goldberg tries to do in his latest op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. In the piece, Goldberg takes aim at Bill McKibben, who took part in a short piece for The Atlantic titled “How and When Will the World End?” The author, environmentalist, and co-founder of 350.org had this to say about the world’s end:

In a sense, the world as we knew it is already over. We have heated the Earth, melted the Arctic, and turned seawater 30 percent more acidic. The only question left is how much more fossil fuel we’ll burn, and hence how unfamiliar and inhospitable we’ll make our home planet.

Goldberg has worked for the American Enterprise Institute, an organization that receives a great deal of money from Exxon-Mobile and that tried to buy off scientists with large cash payments to write articles critical of the IPCC’s 2007 report on global warming, and he doesn’t like what McKibben has to say. He knows, however, as the science backs up what McKibben is talking about, he cannot criticize what McKibben says. So Goldberg just changes the subject and rejoices in the facts that malaria is virtually unknown in North America, smallpox is eradicated across the globe, much backbreaking labor for people in the industrialized world is now mechanized, and—despite the mechanized slaughter of modern warfare—humans, we assume, kill each other less frequently than we did when our ancestors lived in caves.

            While I don’t necessarily share Goldberg’s happy faced view of human history, he does make a good point. At least for a good number of people who live in an industrialized society life in the 21^st century is bitchin’. But that has nothing to do with what Bill McKibben said in The Atlantic. We not only have the ability to wreck the planet with CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, we have already irrevocably started down that path, that is McKibben’s point. That I’m not threatened by Neolithic tribal warfare has nothing to do with McKibben’s dire statement.

King Coal Gins Up Animus For Obama and the EPA

Mines have been closing throughout Appalachia, with hundreds of miners laid off. Some of these men have been on the job for years; others have worked decades in the mines. These men are laid off in an area that has been economically depressed since at least the early eighties. Prospects for finding other well-paying work are not good.

            Mine closings also affect the barbers, restaurant owners, waitresses, and just about everybody else who works for a living in a mining community. Paychecks that no longer come in also affect the children.

            Mines close and everybody suffers.

Poverty reigns where they mine coal. Lose your job and the chances of finding other good-paying work are slim.

Miners and residents of coal communities have a right to be upset and angry when their mines close. I just don’t like it when the coal companies spend time and money to channel that anger to advance their agenda.

            Coal companies are spending big bucks to sponsor rallies, and PR campaigns to get the message out that miners have lost their jobs and Appalachians suffer because of Barack Obama, the EPA, and environmentalists. Big Coal and its supporters have created organizations such as Coal Mining Our Future that sponsor rallies and distribute T-shirts with pro coal industry messages. These organizations also encourage Appalachians to contact politicians with pro coal mining memes. Like any other industry, King Coal has always had its lobbyists. But by enlisting the public to contact their Congressional representatives, they have created a coal constituency to support their industry in the state houses and Capitol Hill.

            Apparently, these campaigns are paying off for King Coal.  Public opinion favoring the coal companies and their mining practices has increased in the last six years. In a speech titled “From Villain to Victim: The Coal Industry’s New Image in Appalachian Kentucky,” Al Cross, the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky, said of the coal companies, “[They] are in a defensive mode, and they’re gathering their friends around them. This has created, I think, kind of a siege mentality and a regional solidarity. There used to just be sympathy for miners. Now there is sympathy for an industry.”

            Traditionally, miners viewed their employers with a jaundiced eye. For good reason. They knew that without their union, the coal companies would have them working under extremely hazardous conditions for subsistence wages. So for me, having grown up in West Virginia, it’s a little disorienting to see miners taking the side of the coal companies, but I guess that a well-planned and financed PR campaign can bring over a lot of people to your side.

A scene from Matewan, about the beginnings of the United Mine Workers, when miners trusted water moccasins more than the coal companies

Regulations on power plants aside, coal mines have closed because of increased transportation costs and a great decline in the price of natural gas. Warmer than average winters also mean that people are burning less coal and lessening the demand for the mineral. Are these reasons for the decline in coal mining brought up at the industry sponsored rallies?

            I didn’t think so.

            Burning coal throws more CO2 in the atmosphere than anything else; one of the best strategies to reduce our CO2 emissions would be to phase out its use. I can understand that miners’ discontent, and if we as we as a country make the decision to turn away from coal, we owe the miners and other Appalachians a path for them to move on economically, whether that be through regional economic development, education and job training, or aided migration to other areas of the country that aren’t as economically depressed.

            Whether it be the automobile industry exiting Detroit and leaving that city in an economic vacuum or clothing companies buying garments from unsafe factories in Asia, the track record of corporations caring about their workers is not a good one. I don’t believe that the coal companies really care about the miners holding onto their jobs. The coal industry wants less regulation, and they are successfully channeling the anger of the miners, their families, and their neighbors to achieve that goal. But while they hold rallies and hand out T-shirts, mountains crumble, people get sick and die from polluted waters, and others lose their homes and communities to rising seas.

             

            

Will W.Va. give Obama’s climate plan a chance?

Will W.Va. give Obama’s climate plan a chance?

Another great observation from Ken Ward. Of course the reaction from the coal companies and their politicians, like Shelly Moore Capito, are predictable. Sometimes I wonder, given the animus that most West Virginians have towards our president, would West Virginia support him doing anything?

No Heavy Metals For Kentucky's Public Drinking Water

This is from the Kentucky Division of Water. A study that looked at 12 years of data of Kentucky’s drinking water found that the drinking water was safe from heavy metal pollutants, even in the counties where there is a lot of coal mining.

            Using data from the National Cancer Institute, the study compared counties where coal production has been high with counties where coal production has been low and found no significant difference in cancer rates, although the study did find that cancer rates were higher in the eastern Appalachian mountains of the state.

            Other recent scientific studies have found high rates of cancer, birth defects, and other ailments afflicting those who live among mountaintop removal mines. These studies were peer reviewed. The study from the Kentucky Division of Water has yet to receive peer review. Also, the study only considered public drinking water and not well water. It is water drawn from wells that is usually fouled by mountaintop mining. And, as well, cancer rates were compared between counties of high and low coal production. Including counties where there is no coal production, a control group, was not included.

            Even still, I’d be interested to know more about some of this research and what might be concluded after this study receives peer review.

Judas Priest, heavy metal you might want photo: last.fm 

A coal ash spill, heavy metals you probably don't want photo: celcias.com

A Speech on Climate Change That I Can Believe In

While I have criticized the president before for his lack of action on global warming, I applaud the speech he made yesterday. It is a stance on climate change that I can believe in. While the GOP has delivered to the moneyed interests exactly what they want, a Congress that is legislatively stalled during a Democratic presidency, this speech, and the resulting actions that Obama promises by his administration, is all the president can do.

            He gave us what the second Bush administration denied us, an unequivocal statement on what the science is telling us about CO2 and our warming world. It’s a sad comment on our politics and a testament to the power of the energy companies and their ability to obfuscate the facts at hand, that long after the science has been concluded we have to wait years, decades really, for our president to make such a statement. But I guess it always works that way. “Separate is note equal” is a pretty simple and obvious observation, but it took generations after Emancipation before the Supreme Court made that ruling on civil rights.

Mostly by restricting emissions from power plants, president Obama’s proposed set of rules and regulations could reduce our country’s greenhouse gas emissions in the next seven years by close to 20 percent of 2005 levels.

            Of course, the coal companies don’t like it. Fox News is, predictably, not pleased. And Mitch McConnell has said that the president’s proposed course of action on the climate is a “war on jobs” and “tantamount to kicking the ladder out from beneath the feet of many Americans struggling in today’s economy.” What I’d like to know from Mitch McConnell is why, if he is so concerned about American’s having and keeping jobs, has he gotten in the way of any effort to help the economy recover after the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression?

            Over at Appalachian Voices, they rightly applaud the president, even urging him to do more. Executive Director Tom Cormons had this to say:

The president’s plan represents a good first step toward a 21st Century climate and energy policy for America. It’s essential that his administration implement one of the centerpieces of that plan–strong controls on power plant emissions.

Beyond what he spoke of today, there’s more the president must do to build a robust clean energy economy and ensure that heavily impacted areas like Appalachia don’t get left behind.

The devastating practice of mountaintop removal coal mining has no place in a 21st Century energy plan, nor in a positive environmental legacy for this president.

President Obama must stop industry from pushing the costs of doing business off on communities and our environment, while doing more to invest in energy efficiency and renewable sources particularly in Appalachia and other regions that have borne the brunt of a fossil-fuel economy.

For example, the administration’s plan to provide up to $250 million in loan guarantees to rural utilities to finance job-creating energy efficiency and renewable energy investments is a great start. Compare this to the $8 billion in the president’s plan for loan guarantees supporting fossil fuel projects, and its clear that we need to see a much stronger commitment.

Such investments will go far to create the jobs, economic security, and environmental health for these areas, consistent with President Obama’s goal of fulfilling a moral obligation to future generations.

Cormons is correct, and the warming of the planet and the devastation of Appalachia from out-of-control surface coal mining are most certainly linked. I’m willing, however, at least for now, to cheer president Obama for his actions on the climate.

The Immigration Reform Bill in Congress Throws the Environment Under the Bus

The Senate is set to vote on the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744) today.

The word is that Democrats are on board to pass a reform bill with a “path to citizenship” for folks who presently lack legal immigration status. The Grand Old Party has its doubts about the legislation. To pull in enough of their votes for passage the Corker-Hoeven Amendment was added to the bill. This is the “border security” bit of the law that would add 20,000 more border patrol agents (a total that could place a border patrol agent along the U.S. Mexico border every 500 feet), 700 more miles of walls and fences, plus cameras, lights, drones, and a whole bunch of stuff that makes our southern border resemble some sort of latter day Maginot Line.

            To get GOP votes, I guess they figured that they also had to throw the environment under the bus. The bill would open up federal lands to motorized patrols, meaning that the Border Patrol could drive their jeeps and trucks over federally protected lands anywhere they wanted, and that they can build communications, surveillance, and detection equipment on these lands. The law stipulates the preparation of Environmental Impact Statements according to NEPA for these activities. These EISs, however, “shall not control, delay, or restrict actions by the Secretary to achieve effective control on Federal lands.”

So, in essence, go ahead and prepare the EIS, just don’t let it get in the way of driving your Border Patrol jeep anywhere you want, and you don’t have to pay attention to those geese and tortoises whose nests you have just trampled on. There has already been a great deal of environmental damage because of the border buildup; we don't need more of the same. According to the govtrack website, however, the bill has only a 27 percent chance of passage, so I’m only slightly concerned.

Dont' let the geese and tortoises get in the way of your Border Patrol jeep

Breaking news: Citizen groups seek OSMRE takeover of West Virginia DEP’s mining program

Breaking news: Citizen groups seek OSMRE takeover of West Virginia DEP’s mining program

This story is a big deal. People are standing up for the rule of law in West Virginia.
           This is from Ken Ward and his blog Coal Tattoo. Ken is a reporter for the Charleston Gazette. His reporting over the last 20 years on the subject of coal, coal mining, and mountaintop removal has been outstanding.